- 4 months ago
In this episode of The InEVitable by MotorTrend
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00:00:00Hi there! Welcome to The Inevitable. This is Motor Trends Podcast, our vodcast about the future of
00:00:05cars, the future of mobility. Where are we going? How are we going to get there? And on this
00:00:09particular episode, we are talking about the future of General Motors. Welcome to The Inevitable,
00:00:17a podcast by Motor Trend. And you know how some of y'all complain that I cut off the guests a little
00:00:31too frequently? Good news for you! I'm not even on this episode. Yes, it's all about me. Hello
00:00:37there. I'm Ed Lowe. I'm the head of Inevitable at Motor Trend. I'm your co-host along with Johnny for
00:00:43this vodcast, which is not sponsored, by the way. So if you want to shoot us a note, drop it to me.
00:00:47GM. Edward.loh at Hearst.com. And yes, for this episode, unfortunately, Johnny couldn't come with
00:00:55me. I went to New York earlier this week for what was called GM Forward. And this is a technology
00:01:02focused morning, really. It was from about 8 a.m. to just after 12 noon. All about the future of GM's
00:01:10products. GM CEO Mary Barrow was there, kicked off the day, followed by GM President Mark Royce.
00:01:19They had their chief product officer, this new guy, Sterling Anderson, was there. I got to talk to
00:01:25exactly none of those people, but I did get to talk to a bunch of the folks who are really in the
00:01:32trenches doing a lot of the hard work in different verticals. And they're more interesting anyways.
00:01:38They're all very nice people, very interesting people, but that is correct. And I think if we
00:01:42do this, well, why don't I not, I won't jinx it. I'll just tell you some of the folks we talked to
00:01:48will surprise you with the order. I'll tell you who comes at the end though. We talked to Kurt Kelty,
00:01:54who's GM's battery guru. So talked about their new lithium manganese rich battery chemistry and some
00:02:01of the U.S. production announcements they had. We talked to a guy named Ryan Seigen, sorry, Gary Seigen.
00:02:09Shoot, I hope that's great. Gary Seigen, who is the connected, it's all about their new
00:02:16centralized computing architecture. So that's his ball of wax. It gives me the whole rundown on that.
00:02:23We also talked to our man, Asim Kapoor, who we had on the podcast from GM Home Energy,
00:02:30gave us a latest update on what they're doing with battery charging at the house. There's a big
00:02:37announcement on leasing the system. And then we talked with Baris Setanak, who's of the GM software
00:02:44and services division about the big news, which is that the 2028 Cadillac Escalade IQ will have
00:02:51eyes off, hands off, driving. So basically level three driving. So basically you can put the car
00:02:59into super cruise mode and you don't have to be looking down the road anymore. The car is going
00:03:03to drive for you. Interesting. Some very interesting philosophical decisions they made about the
00:03:09process, which is super cool. Oh, that's awesome. And then we wrap with the man, the myth, the legend,
00:03:14Dave Richardson, who is their head, I think he's SVP of software and services for John Motors,
00:03:19longtime Apple guy. He comes on and talks about this big announcement that's coming next year,
00:03:25which is GM vehicles are going to add Google Gemini AI assistant to all their vehicles all the
00:03:34way back to 2015, which was like, yeah, which was the wildest news. There was a last interview of the
00:03:40day. It's the last interview of this episode should be the first, but that's just how it,
00:03:44how it, um, how it ended up and all the implications of adding, I mean, it's millions
00:03:49of cars are going to get an over the air update, adding a conversational AI chat bot to the car.
00:03:56How, I mean, they can do a over the air on 2015 Buicks. We're going to hear from David Richardson
00:04:02all about that on this episode. So let's dive in. I apologize. This was filmed in a very tight
00:04:08amount of time in a very tight space. So I'm not sure how the audio, not sure how the audio or the
00:04:16video is going to work out, but we tried our best. So let's, let's roll tape.
00:04:25Now, while people may be more fooling with our cars and pop culture, they may not know that
00:04:30we've always pushed the industry forward with our technologies. Our vision is to create a car
00:04:40of the future that knows you, that learns, that looks out for you and anticipates your needs even
00:04:45before you say it's more than just a vehicle. It makes your life easier, more streamlined and more
00:04:52importantly, safer. That's what we're working toward at General Motors. That's right. This GM forward.
00:05:00I'm calling it a science fair. This is your display. This is me. This is both a video podcast and an
00:05:06audio one. So as much as you can, you know, tell us what's the big news on this centralized compute
00:05:13Anasta. Absolutely. So if we start over here, this is our current generation architecture and it's very
00:05:20similar to what's on most of the vehicles on the road today. Okay. It grew over many years as we added
00:05:26electronic controls to each major subsystem on the vehicle. Propulsion, their own module. Brakes,
00:05:32its own module. Infotainment, its own module. And then we slowly improve that over years, adding
00:05:39more and more capability. When you want to add a new feature, okay, you want to add a new feature to
00:05:44this vehicle, it oftentimes requires you change software in three, four, five, six different places,
00:05:49integrate it on that module, and then integrate it at a vehicle level with all of the modules talking
00:05:54over can, right? So there's multiple steps of validation and integration you need to go to.
00:06:00We move in the new architecture. The big difference is all of that thinking is now collapsed and
00:06:05happening in one place. So the updates happen in one place. The integration happens in one place.
00:06:11And this architecture we're using across all of the vehicles. So you don't have these nuances
00:06:17vehicle to vehicle. You have one core architecture, one brain that you're updating and you're delivering
00:06:22to. So it allows us to go a lot faster, delivering new value, delivering fixes, delivering new features
00:06:28to our cost of variation. Okay.
00:06:29Now. And one of the keys there is in the older system to do any kind of update, you mentioned
00:06:34a can, a can bus, right? That's literally having to plug it in at a dealer and a hard line versus
00:06:41over the air. Not necessarily. On this architecture, we can update this architecture. You've got to power up
00:06:47all of the modules that you want to update. You've got to power up the hand network. So everything is
00:06:51on, awake, aware, and programmable, right? This is just far simpler because you power up one.
00:06:58You flip one switch, you've got everything on it. You need to update, you update it, and there you are.
00:07:03Okay. Yeah.
00:07:04And one of the key announcements here was also that this system, again, you're showing the current
00:07:10generation, which is in all cars, primarily internal combustion. This new system will work.
00:07:16You're calling it propulsion or powertrain agnostic. Yeah. Right? So internal combustion,
00:07:22EV, hybrid, theoretically, any, whatever GM is going to make one system.
00:07:27Exactly. Exactly. Because fundamentally, there's a couple of reasons. First, and we did this from
00:07:31day one. This, this was the plan as we set out to design this new architecture. We, we think that
00:07:37the experience people want in their cars that is provided from the electrical architecture like this,
00:07:43whether it be AV experiences, whether it be infotainment experiences, whether it be immersive
00:07:48experiences inside the vehicle, providing entertainment or media to the customer, that is
00:07:53independent of what propulsion system that they choose. Right? And so from day one, we design the
00:07:59architecture for it to cover the entire portfolio. Um, there's some nuances, you know, architecture to
00:08:06architecture or, or propulsion system to, uh, propulsion system and how you have to cool it,
00:08:11et cetera. Like as an example, if you're an EV and here's the cooling ports, you know, you have
00:08:16pulling in and pulling out to call the big computer. If you're an EV, you can just tap into the cooling
00:08:21system that already exists for the battery. Right. And grab the cool. If you're in an ice vehicle,
00:08:25the coolant that goes through the engine to cool an ice vehicle is much hotter temp. Right. And what you
00:08:30need. Right. So we actually have to create an auxiliary cooling system and cooling loop to cool it.
00:08:34If it's a hybrid, you get the same thing as an EV. If it's a turbocharged vehicle, you can tap in to
00:08:40the charge air fuller system and grab that cool and do it. So there's, there's nuances in the
00:08:44physical integration, but the digital side of this is one common platform for all of our dudes.
00:08:50So why does it have to be liquid cooling versus, I mean, I'm thinking about this as a computer,
00:08:55like a PC you might've built it at home in the nineties or whatever. And those were air cooled,
00:09:00right? Yellow fan on there. This couldn't have been air cooled or.
00:09:03So, so just like a gaming PC and my, you know, I, my kid just built a new gaming PC
00:09:08recently, right? They're all liquid pool. They're all liquid pool. Right. And if you look,
00:09:12the reason of, if you kind of, you know, open that thing up and look at the chip, right?
00:09:15The amount of energy density, if you fire all the transistors in today's chips, super powerful
00:09:21chips, you need to liquid full, right? It's super, it's much more efficient to liquid pool and then
00:09:25to air cool. Right. So that's the reason that we're, we're computing is going.
00:09:30Got it. So for those listening, sorry, we're standing in front of a wall that has the current
00:09:35setup with what, like a dozen black boxes or so. There's, there's more than a dozen. I think
00:09:40there's 17 plus a couple of fusion boxes, right? That, that collapse. That's current state.
00:09:45Yep. And the next generation is essentially four different modules, a connectivity hub module,
00:09:51essential compute unit. That's the big silver box. Yep. And tell us about these two aggregators.
00:09:57I heard in a, in a previous, in your, your, uh, demo. Yeah. That this essentially replaces
00:10:02the traditional fuse box. No more, no more fuses as we know them in the cars of the future.
00:10:08Correct. Yeah. So, um, you look over here and everybody's seen these in their cars,
00:10:12right? We have multiple fuse boxes. Each one is on a specific wire. So if something draws more
00:10:17current than that wire is designed to the fuse, the fuse blows, right? Protects the system.
00:10:21As we move to the new architecture, we have what's called e-fuses, which you can think of this as a
00:10:26electronically controlled piece of silicon that is controlled via software that lives in here that
00:10:32turns the circuit on, off monitors current throughout every single circuit and can limit the current
00:10:39level on an individual circuit. So, Hey, I want to only allow 10 amps. You can do that, right? So these
00:10:45go away. We move to sort of what we think is next and will be commonplace, you know, in 10 years across
00:10:51the industry to these electronic uses that allow that type of control. Okay. So, and then this, um,
00:10:58this hub connectivity model, this is model module. This is where everything basically on the outside
00:11:03world comes into the car. You got it. You got it. So anything you want the car to connect to,
00:11:08whether it be wifi, whether it be cellular, whether it be radio, right? Every radio technology that
00:11:13you're connecting a car to happens in that module there. All right. Also, if you want to connect to a
00:11:19device or a tablet or anything like that, it happens through there. So that's design. And
00:11:24that's why it's so long. Cause you've got multiple radios across there that are picking up any
00:11:29connection that you want to make for the vehicle. It happens in that single box and not distributed
00:11:33across the car. So in one place. So it's showing 5g, wifi, radio, Bluetooth, Sirius XM. Okay. Yep.
00:11:40GNSS satellite position, right? Exactly. Okay. And then in the box, the main thing though,
00:11:46is that this is a centralized computing architecture. Yes. Can you just recount for
00:11:52our, our lay person audience, like the headline, like what are the big benefits? Like one is like
00:11:57decreased amount of wiring to the car. Is that correct? So the, it for sure decreases the wiring.
00:12:04This whole architecture makes it simple to build, simpler to build, simpler to wire, fewer parks to
00:12:09install for sure. But the big reason that we're doing it, we want those benefits for sure. The big
00:12:14reason we're moving, we're moving your architecture like this is because it's fundamentally faster to
00:12:19deliver software to our fleet. That's, that's the real takeaway, right? Faster delivered new
00:12:25experiences to our customers. Okay. And why is this better than say zonal architecture, right?
00:12:31We think it's the next step beyond zonal where zonal have processors that do thinking in these
00:12:38modules, like the equivalent in a zonal architecture would have four of these that has processing,
00:12:42you know, on each of the edges, right? Fundamentally moving to a centralized compute allows more software
00:12:49to be pulled into the central compute. You have to do it. And that separates really the application
00:12:56software on the vehicle from the hardware on the vehicle. And it allows far more software sharing
00:13:00across different vehicle types and more software sharing across different vehicle types allows
00:13:05faster deployment, better validation, higher quality, more experiences faster. Yeah.
00:13:12So you're a car guy, right? Absolutely. Is this, and this I know has one of the big processors or GPUs in
00:13:25here is from NVIDIA, at least on for the, to support the autonomous systems. Yeah. And we know like from the
00:13:30computing days, if you were to buy a gaming computer or something that was graphics intensive, you were always
00:13:35looking for an NVIDIA graphics card, right? That was like their origin. The GPU. Right. Do you think, I'm getting
00:13:42the question is, is this like the, you know, the LS, the digital equipment on like a Chevy, like an LS small
00:13:50blocks? And will people be buying cars based on the processor within the box? Very interesting you say that. I've
00:13:56actually internal, right? With my team talked about, if you think about the heritage of the small block
00:14:02Chevy, right? Okay. Which you said, you're a car guy, car guy. And what that means to people and why people buy
00:14:08certain vehicles or just to get a small block Chevy, a 350, a 300, what up, right? This in the future is
00:14:15where we, where we see vehicles going and what's important in a vehicle. It's very similar in what we want to create
00:14:22for customers. They're buying it to get that from the key. They're buying it to get that capability. The engine
00:14:27that powers digital experiences, we want to create and we want it to be similar to how people think about
00:14:33the small block Chevy and our legacy of, you know, when it was invented in 1955. Right. Right. Okay. So.
00:14:39All right. Well, that's wild. Looks like a lot of work. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's exciting though. It's exciting.
00:14:45And this will come to consumers' hands 2028? Yes. 2028. And in the Cadillac Escalade IQ?
00:14:55First come in the Cadillac Escalade IQ. Okay. And then we'll be quickly rolling it across the portfolio. We're working
00:15:00through the rollout plans. But again, the power in this is getting it not only into one vehicle, but getting it into
00:15:07the fleet of vehicles and being able to deliver and deploy as a fleet. Right. Common central platform across the scale
00:15:14our core portfolio. Awesome. Yeah. All right. Well, Gary Sullyan, thank you so much. Hey, absolutely.
00:15:20Great to meet you. So we're here at GM Forward, basically your science fair. And this is your
00:15:28display. Yeah. Kurt Kelty, what's your title? So I'm basically head of battery, anything battery related
00:15:35at GM. Okay. And then what's the big news today from this event? So we've got several non-battery
00:15:44news, which is hard to imagine. Right. I'm really interested in the battery part of this. Right.
00:15:50And so what we're demonstrating here is our latest battery chemistry, this LMR chemistry,
00:15:57which is lithium manganese rich chemistry. Okay. And a different form factor and a different
00:16:02battery pack design. Okay. So this is a video podcast. So there's an audio component. So if
00:16:09you can walk, walk us through this massive battery display here, again, for those of you listening,
00:16:15we're standing next to a table and it has the battery pack from one of the trucks. It's one of
00:16:21the trucks. It's our biggest battery pack. Okay. And what we've done here is the first time we're
00:16:26showing this to the public. It's, it's really a hybrid prototype where we've got our existing
00:16:31technology on the left side here and the right side is our next generation technology. And let's
00:16:37talk about, let's talk about the existing technology. So we're on the left side and what you're, what you
00:16:42can't see is some pouches in front of us. And then, um, so an opened up battery pack showcasing some of
00:16:50the pouches and what, and which, which, uh, chemistry is this? So this is a high nickel chemistry and we've
00:16:56got 24 pouches lined up and connected together in a module. And then we've got the module stacked
00:17:03on top of each other. So it's two layers of modules here. And then there's 24 modules total in, in the
00:17:10battery pack. And this is current technology in like a Silverado? Correct. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So
00:17:14you'd get 210 kilowatt hours or so out of this battery pack. It's massive. Massive. Yes. And it gives
00:17:22you 490 miles of driving range, which is the best in the market for a truck. Right. It's a lot, a lot of
00:17:26miles, a lot of miles, huge battery. We dig it. But over here on the right side, this is the new
00:17:32chemistry. This is the big announcement today. Yeah. The, um, and so what you can see here is an
00:17:37implementation of LMR chemistry in a large prismatic cell. The prismatic cell goes from the top to the
00:17:43bottom. So it goes the full height of, of the, uh, battery pack. And you can see how simple it is
00:17:49here and how much the, it's the batteries take up the space as opposed to the other side with the
00:17:54pouch cells. There's a lot of, a lot of wasted space in there compared to what we're doing here,
00:17:58where we've got all these cells that look like bricks or a book all lined up next to each other.
00:18:04Um, and we've got now six modules here instead of 24. So we've significantly reduced the module count.
00:18:11The other thing is our part count in overall is dropped by about 50%. So we get a much simpler
00:18:17design, less parts, which leads to lower costs. It's a better warranty issues, less things to break.
00:18:23Um, so that's on the just simple mechanical design. But the other real advantage here is the chemistry.
00:18:30Okay. So this is an LMR, the lithium manganese rich chemistry, which is something we've been
00:18:35developing in our labs for over 10 years now at GM. We're going to be the first to market with this,
00:18:40uh, with our trucks in 2028. The, um, we're to manufacture it at our old Tim plants with our
00:18:47partner, LG. The two of us are developing this together. And so what you're going to end up with
00:18:52here is a chemistry and a form factor. It really achieves a low cost at a very strong range. You're not
00:19:01going to have as much range as a high nickel. You're able to drive a lot of that cost out of it.
00:19:05Okay. So instead of getting 490 miles, which you get in a high nickel, uh, chemistry, right? Yeah.
00:19:12The current, uh, skate, we'll go with an LMR and we're going to get over 400, close to 420 miles
00:19:18on this. Um, but we're going to be able to do it at a cost. It's similar to LFP. And LFP is the
00:19:25chemistry in China. It's the affordable chemistry. If you put LFP in here and you get about 350 miles.
00:19:30So that gives you a little comparison. So it's right. It's kind of right in between LFP and the
00:19:35high nickel in terms of range, but it's at a cost similar to the LFP. Okay. So let me just recap
00:19:40that. So high nickel current state and like a Silverado EV pickup truck, you're getting around
00:19:46490 miles of range in a pack this size. If you went to LMR, lithium manganese rich, you could get
00:19:54around 420, but at a cost of a much lower cost. You have a, do you have any kind of get a percentage
00:20:00the election? So the LFP, if you went LFP, we'd have a $6,000 savings. Okay. Compared to the high
00:20:05nickel and the LMR is a comparable cost to the LFP. To the LFP. So it's as cost efficient as LFP.
00:20:13Correct. LFP is only delivering about 350 miles of range for a pack this size. Correct. Okay. This is
00:20:18what we heard Mary and Mark talking earlier about how we're able to compete against the Chinese and
00:20:24the most effective way we have in the U.S. here is by innovating, innovating faster. We're going to be
00:20:30the first to market with this. So we're, we're super excited about implementing this. Okay. And just
00:20:35again, for those listening, we're looking at a pack that, and you might've heard some of these
00:20:39other EV manufacturers like Tesla, they're using cylindrical cells. Pouches are used by other
00:20:47manufacturers. Prismatic is basically a GM sort of pioneering, like in presenting meaning
00:20:53prisms, like boxes, not, not cylinders, like bricks. Well, they're, they're, that's a common
00:21:00form factor in the industry. It uses prismatic form factor. So there's nothing new in terms of
00:21:06that form factor, but what we're able to do with LMR, we're able to make this massive cell to make it
00:21:11this big is really unusual. If you look at other prismatic cells, they're much smaller and we're
00:21:16able to do the LMR enables us to make this big cell. Okay. And then one of the other things that
00:21:22Mark talked about is, is, uh, the rare earth issue and the, and there's an advantage here with,
00:21:30with LMR too, right? There are no rare earth minerals in battery pack. Just, just to clear that
00:21:36up. Okay. They are in motors, magnets, things like that, but not in battery packs. Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry.
00:21:41But then the broader picture of, um, the, the sustainability, the, uh, and the supply chain,
00:21:48and the supply chain. Yes. Yes. Because this has lower nickel content for that's where some of the,
00:21:57the price savings is. Yes. So the cost savings come from reducing the nickel from that 90% nickel
00:22:03of our high nickel cells down to 35% nickel in the LMR cells. So that's where we get a huge cost
00:22:09reduction from that. And then we're able to leverage the existing supply chain, uh, from the,
00:22:14the, uh, the high nickel, uh, we use that same cathode process. Uh, is in fact, it's a little
00:22:21bit easier than the, uh, than the high nickel. So we're able to reuse costs there as well and
00:22:25processing costs. Okay. Uh, my cohost would kick me for asking you the rare earth question about
00:22:30batteries. I should have known for that. It's a common, it's a very common misconception.
00:22:34And it, we did not address that appropriately up there. Okay. So I, I, I would, that's my correct.
00:22:40I'm sorry if I said, no, no, no, it's okay. I, we've actually covered it. And I just had a,
00:22:44it's early for me. It often, people are often making that mistake. But, and I'll, I'll just ask
00:22:50you to, because the other guy you talked to asked it, it's a great question. So I'd like you to
00:22:53repeat it. Um, talk about the recyclability and the fact that another misconception is that,
00:23:01well, a batteries are super expensive, which has been true, but the cost is coming down.
00:23:05But two, that, what are you to do with that big hunk of battery in the car once it's done? Like
00:23:11you got to put that into a, into a, you know, a junkyard. And it's like, absolutely not. You,
00:23:15uh, Mary and Mark talked about, uh, second life for, you know, batteries, all of that.
00:23:23Yeah. So, so first of all, the, the metals in batteries, uh, can be a hundred percent recycled
00:23:30and that's, that's not, that's not down cycle. That's recycled into other batteries. So that's
00:23:35the lithium, it's the, the nickel, it's the copper, the aluminum, all that a hundred percent
00:23:40recycled. That's the first point. The second point is we recycle everything in our factories
00:23:45now. So all of our scrap that comes off our line, any battery packs that come back from
00:23:49the market for whatever reason, or crash testing or whatever reason we recycle all that. Now,
00:23:56the third thing to point out is that batteries actually can have a second life. So if you,
00:24:01uh, let's say you driven the car for 150,000 or 200,000 miles and you've got 80% capacity remaining,
00:24:09you might want to trade up your car. Well, we can still use that in the second use application.
00:24:14And that's where we're working with Redwood, uh, to use a second, second, get a second life
00:24:19out of these battery packs. And we're packed, uh, powering right now, data centers out of that.
00:24:24Okay. All right. Well, um, when will we see the, what will be the first vehicle we should see
00:24:33LMR in and when?
00:24:34So you'll see it in 2028, the, um, and we'll see it in the truck applications.
00:24:39Okay. So, uh, manufacturing old team factories, the, uh, so it's, uh, it'll be, uh, yeah. So
00:24:47you'll see it then. And we're going to be first to market with it. Okay. All right. Yeah. Uh,
00:24:53exciting news. It is. Anything else you want to tell us about, uh, what GM's doing in the,
00:24:58in the battle? Well, I mean, the, the real beauty of all this is it, it hits all three of our goals
00:25:03that we're trying to do. We're trying to drive out costs. We're trying to improve performance
00:25:07and trying to localize the supply chain. And so all three of those we can achieve here with
00:25:11this LMR. So it's the first example of what you're going to see more and more from us is how
00:25:16we're addressing the market and driving down costs and improvement performance.
00:25:20Awesome. Kurt Kelsey, John Motors, battery guru. Appreciate you.
00:25:25Thank you. It's a pleasure. Asim Kapoor, thank you so much for being back on The Inevitable.
00:25:30Tell me what, what are you, what's the big news here for you? Yeah. Well, first of all,
00:25:33it's great to see you again. Yes. Thank you for having us. The big news is that we have gotten
00:25:39customers to have EVs serve as their backup power generators. The last time you and I met,
00:25:44we gave you a demo and talked about all the, the value pool. Now we have thousands of customers
00:25:48that are using it. Okay. And we're going to expand the scale by giving customers the option to lease
00:25:54the system, both finance, the purchase and the installation and scale. So that's what we're
00:25:59really doing. And we'd love to talk about some of the features we've released, some of the things
00:26:04that we've actually done for the customers to make their lives easier. Okay. Well, let's,
00:26:07let's do that. That, that does seem like big news. So that's great. That's, that's great that since
00:26:11we've talked, it sounds like things have gone well, successful. And the, and the customers that have
00:26:16adopted the home energy solution, which, which involves this battery module behind you. Yes.
00:26:22Controller, the bi-directional charging cable, right? Yes. Um, uh, those customers have had to
00:26:30essentially purchase the system. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. And so now you're announcing leasing has,
00:26:38is that in response to maybe some customers that were interested, but turned, but did not
00:26:42end up buying the system or? Yeah. So I think the, the price of the product, uh, is definitely,
00:26:47you know, a consideration. So we want to make it at more accessible and lower the cost of entry for
00:26:52the consumer. So that's definitely, you know, a driver there. I think the other aspect is we are
00:26:57bringing what we've learned through our journey so far is that as we've deployed these systems,
00:27:02we're building a very robust installation network. So bringing installer partners, so we can provide
00:27:06more cost certainty on both the product and the installation experience. So we want to make sure
00:27:12that we can, you know, provide customer the confidence, what's it going to cost to install
00:27:16and how long it's going to take to install. When you bundle those things together, the customer's
00:27:21looking for choices. Hey, can I get it at a lower price point? Can I actually make a monthly payment?
00:27:26So the leasing really unlocks that flexibility that the customers want in order to make a monthly
00:27:31payment, uh, to be able to get into this technology. So let's, let's talk about the difference
00:27:37between. So can you give me like, what's the average consumer who, who buys into the GM home
00:27:43management system? What would they, what would they pay if they were to buy it versus leasing it?
00:27:49So the cost varies by, uh, of course, the configuration, right? It depends on the size
00:27:53of your home, the type of home you have, whether the system's going indoor and outdoor. So without
00:27:57going into specifics of what they may pay in the future, what I can say is that on a total cost basis,
00:28:04when you look at buying the system upfront and then paying for your installation, we're going
00:28:08to unify that experience, right? You get one coat, what's your cost for the, the, the purchase and
00:28:13the installation. And it's very commonly done in the solar industry. The second piece is going to be,
00:28:18it's based on the duration of the lease. You can pick your lease terms and that also, you know,
00:28:24changes your lease payment options, right? What the monthly payment that you make. And then the last
00:28:29thing I would, I would say is that in addition to, um, not only lowering the monthly payment,
00:28:34what we're also doing is partnering with utility companies to unlock any incentives that are
00:28:39available to the customers. So like for instance, with PG&E, um, they're offering a $4,500 discount
00:28:44towards the purchase of the system. And we're also enrolling our, our systems into their programs.
00:28:49So if they offer a monthly incentive or an opportunity to use the system to lower the impact on the grid,
00:28:55we will bundle that in for the customer upfront. So bringing the incentives to the table,
00:29:01bringing the installer to the table, we're taking all that complexity that the customer has to take
00:29:05on, simplify it, make one monthly payment and get into the system. So then, well, what I, I can see
00:29:12you're sort of avoiding, I just, I just want to know, like, like there's a dollar, like, is there a
00:29:18volume? What's the, what's the, the buyer, the most popular sort of, um, system is roughly how much
00:29:27for, for, yeah. So the, so I'll be transparent. Yeah. The system by itself entirely today, I think
00:29:34it's priced at around a little over 15,000. We're running a really big promotion at present,
00:29:38which discounted by 20%, so the cost of the hardware is roughly around 13,000. The average
00:29:43installation cost varies, but the, the median is around like 8,500 or so. Okay. So for about a 2250,
00:29:52like $22,000 or $25,000, you can invest in the entire system. Okay. Majority of our customers buy
00:29:58the full package. Okay. They want the EV and the power bank because it gives them the most flexibility.
00:30:05It's also when you add in the tax credit, the incentives that are available today on a per
00:30:10particular hour basis. It's the most economical. Okay. When you then translate that into a monthly
00:30:15payment on a lease, whether it's a 10 year lease or a longer duration lease, it's a few hundred
00:30:21dollars a month. So it's very, very economical relative to what you have to pay up front to make
00:30:28an investment. Okay. That decision today. I appreciate that. That was, that was what I was getting,
00:30:31because I am completely ignorant as to what the lease terms would be. So these are much longer
00:30:37lease terms and for a car, you're talking 10, 20, what's, what's the high end duration would you do?
00:30:44Yeah. Typically 10 is, you know, so, so the way to think about this is it follows the life of the
00:30:49asset or the warranty on the asset. Okay. And storage power bank is where the 10 year warranty
00:30:55got it typically lies. Okay. Um, we are definitely looking into extended warranty options as well.
00:31:00So I don't have all the details worked out, but I think we're going to have flexible lease
00:31:03terms, but they're definitely longer than a vehicle. And that's okay. Then, all right,
00:31:09great. So we have the pricing down. So it goes from, you know, a massive potential outlay if
00:31:14you were to buy it to a couple hundred bucks a month, that seems like a win. And you can bundle
00:31:18this in with, if you already own a GM vehicle, it's, is it, will be available with like GM financing
00:31:24or? Yes. We have a host options, whether it's GM financing or any other third party financer,
00:31:30like we're exploring all of them. Uh, we haven't finalized that yet. So not ready to talk about
00:31:33that just yet, but yes. All right. And then any new features you talked about, there's some,
00:31:37some, some cool stuff that you could do now. Yeah. So a couple of, a couple of key features
00:31:41I want to highlight for you. I think one is when we initially released the system, one of the first
00:31:47things, you know, that our teams did is work with the, um, the associated companies in order to
00:31:53integrate the energy plans was the, the biggest value proposition besides resilience to power your
00:32:00home is the fact that can the system save you money? Right. And so we've intelligently configured
00:32:05the system to allow it to power when the energy prices are the lowest. So if you tell us where you
00:32:10live, like in this case, the customers with a DTE consumer, we know what type of reflens they offer
00:32:16because we have an integration on the backend with the utility companies. They can select and they can
00:32:20also pick their choice, right? Depending on their lifestyle, but the system automatically then
00:32:26chooses when to power from the grid. Right. And, and so saving money is becoming an increasingly big
00:32:32value proposition, especially as the value of energy prices keeps going up, right? We've seen about 30%
00:32:38increase in, in the West coast, the East coast, and it's projected is going to go up by another 30%
00:32:42in the next five years. Right. So, so that's a big driver, a new feature that we released. The other
00:32:48thing I just want to highlight is when we initially launched the system, like we had this unified
00:32:53experience that was built in. What we've found is there's a very high level of app engagement.
00:32:58When people invest in this technology, they are, have a higher propensity to go in and use our
00:33:03system. They are looking at it. They're, you know, like they're constantly touching and feeling it.
00:33:08They want to see how the system's functioning. What am I saving? Yes. So they want to see how much money
00:33:11they're saving. So what we've been able to use very successfully is, I think, demonstrate two things
00:33:16beyond app engagement. One, can we do proactive notifications to the consumer? So in partnership
00:33:22with utilities, Hey, there's a big storm coming. It's three days out. It can be day out. Get ready.
00:33:29Now you have your system telling you charge your battery, be ready. And so you're prepared, not just
00:33:34charge your storage battery, charge your car battery, because your car has your, if you have a, like a
00:33:38silver RV, you've got a massive battery. You could then use the bi-directional cable, plug it back in
00:33:43when this thing, when you're done with the home charging battery.
00:33:46Okay. And so just imagine like the peace of mind you have that you're prepared, right? Like you have
00:33:50that and it's, it's at the tip of your, your, you know, palm when you, when the app is doing that.
00:33:54So it's a part of the lifestyle that you're not leading. So that's one big change. The second is we've
00:33:59also seen quite a bit of interest in when we have the customers who actually invest in, say, just the
00:34:06high-speed charger first. They got up, they got an EV, they got a high-speed charger.
00:34:09We are then using the apps to say, Hey, look, the system's capable of doing more. Have you tried
00:34:15this feature set? Have you seen that you can save more money? So we are actually encouraging them to
00:34:20identify opportunities for them to save more money or get ready. And that is capability that we want
00:34:27to bring to the energy companies because that is valuable to them, right? If they're more prepared
00:34:31customers, they're customers that can go off the grid during a major event. That is resilience and
00:34:37capacity that we can bring to the grid and looking at ways we're running active pilots with energy
00:34:41companies like DTE, PG&E. So that's been the biggest change. The fact that there's high app
00:34:47engagement, a lot of interests, right? People are constantly looking at it. And more importantly, it's
00:34:52just the lifestyle, right? That people are getting into where it's the peace of mind. One of the most
00:34:56common things that I get back and I call customers often, especially when I'm having tough days to
00:35:00really say, Hey, what do you think about the system? And it's all about the fact that people say, Hey, look,
00:35:05I, I love the fact that I can see how much money I'm saving. And then I get notifications telling
00:35:10me, let's get ready. All right. Uh, for those listening, uh, Asim is standing in front of a
00:35:15display that's supposed to be like a giant mobile phone showing us ostensibly. This is basically a
00:35:21recreation of the GM energy. Yes. Okay. That's right. It's actually mirrored from the phone on the
00:35:25screen. Um, I will say when you showed the charging, uh, what was it? The settings. Yeah.
00:35:35When you showed me the rate plan for Detroit, that isn't safe. It's saying 9 cents per kilowatt
00:35:42hour for off peak and 14 cents. I'll just tell you in California, my house, I'm paying 36 cents.
00:35:48I think the national average for peak is 18. That's right. So Detroit, you guys have really
00:35:56low electricity costs. Well, let's see what the season, maybe it varies by season. No, it's
00:36:01even, it's even better. So, so before you get too excited, this is our test data. Okay.
00:36:07All right. So I don't take this for, this is the code. It's killing me. And like, you know,
00:36:11move to Detroit. Yes. So I, I think the, this is illustrative to actually demonstrate what
00:36:16this is. So I can confirm back to you if this is actually, I think that's great. Uh, this
00:36:21sounds great. Uh, great to hear that the program is successful. I think the lease option is a no
00:36:27braider. Um, anything else you want to tell our audience? Yeah. I think I would just want
00:36:31to highlight the fact is that we have people living in the future today. There's a lot of,
00:36:35you know, anxiety around what was it going to do with my battery? What's it going to do
00:36:39to the grid? And we're making it happen. You know, we have one of the largest dealer network,
00:36:44the largest app to service network. And we're leaning in to provide that confidence to our customers
00:36:48customers and, uh, something to count on us. Awesome. Well, thank you.
00:36:55I am Boris Chetnok. I'm the CEO vice president for product management for software and services
00:37:01at GM. What I, my team and myself and all of us came to share was our vision and direction for
00:37:08autonomy. Uh, what we shared with you today was starting in 2028 with Escalate IQ, we are going to
00:37:17bring the next generation of supercruise that we already have to our customers. What's going to be
00:37:23the big change at that time today with supercruise on many roads, close to a million mile of roads in
00:37:30the United States, across the United States. And we're also available in other countries as well.
00:37:35You can take your hands off, still be attentive, keep your eyes on the roads and you can drive.
00:37:42And that really creates this comfort, lower cognitive load. I think you just arrive at your
00:37:48destination refreshed. Our goal in 2028 with Escalate IQ is to upgrade that to a also eyes off
00:37:57experience. So you can actually let the car drive autonomously on the highway and you can just focus
00:38:05on what matters to you first. We're going to give you the time back. You can catch up on work.
00:38:10You can be entertained. We showed like how you can pull up a latest episode of a show on HBO Max and
00:38:17watch an episode of White Lotus. Or you can be just engaging with your colleagues or friends and
00:38:22family and have a chat with them. So the idea is how do we create that environment of the car is
00:38:27driving on your behalf. Okay. So current system is hands off, eyes on. Correct. And we're calling that,
00:38:36you guys call it Super Cruise 2.0 or is it? We call it just Super Cruise. We don't have an external
00:38:41moniker like that. Okay. Yeah. And then in 2028, it'll be hands off, eyes off. On highways. On highways.
00:38:48Correct. Okay. And I think it didn't, I saw the embargoed press release and it didn't strike me until
00:38:54you, until your demonstration and you kind of reiterated it. Um, you really mean eyes off. Like
00:39:02if a, if a customer decides to fall asleep, that's, that's possible. That's allowed. Or
00:39:08check Instagram for an hour and completely ignore the road. This is the, this is the condition that
00:39:16you think is, is, uh, going to be allowed. Yeah. I mean, our goal is to create an eyes off,
00:39:21hands off experience on the highways where you can, like I said, you can pull up your,
00:39:26open up your laptop and do email. You can watch a show. You can watch a YouTube video and watch one
00:39:34of your YouTube videos and catch up on what's going on in your podcast. Okay. I mean, it is the
00:39:38environment we're working to create. Okay. And I think that the big, the big thing that you
00:39:43talked about, which I was hoping to explore is, I think it's important. You GM, your team,
00:39:50there's a philosophical, you're making a bit, a pretty strong statement here, which is with
00:39:56eyes off, you believe the vehicle has to have the intelligence and the capability to, to deal with
00:40:05any situation on the highway. There's going to be no hard handoff, um, you know, while, while the
00:40:10system is engaged. Yeah. I think it's still, of course, early to get to the exact specifics of
00:40:15moments of handoff. But I think what we show today is we want, we are working to create a system
00:40:22that is designed to make millisecond decisions. We as a human, an example would be, if you're driving
00:40:31at 70 miles an hour, a good attentive human has probably one and a half to two seconds of reaction
00:40:39time. We want to create a system that can act in milliseconds. And so increase the safety of your
00:40:46drive. Second, our goal is also to make sure that this moments of handoffs are gracefully designed
00:40:55because we said, we're going to start on the highway. So that means there is your unwrap and
00:41:01offwrap moments. And then we showed in our demo, if you sat in the car, we will gracefully give you a
00:41:07heads up and say, Hey, you're coming to the one stretch of the ride where we know how to operate
00:41:12in X minutes or X a hundred feet. You're going to be on an off ramp. Please now get ready to take
00:41:18over. So we are working to design this type of engagement, disengagement and all those moments,
00:41:25but it's still too early to share the exact choreography and exact details. Okay. But in,
00:41:32in the demos you showed two, you showed two scenarios. One where there's a motorcycle
00:41:35passing, uh, on the right hand, on the left-hand side, sort of cutting aggressively across and
00:41:41then a potential, but avoided deer strike scenario. And both of those situations that the driver was
00:41:49not taking over. The idea is the vehicle handles it completely. So can you just walk us through,
00:41:54like, let's, let's take that, uh, avoided deer strike. The vehicle senses this creature on the roadway
00:42:02and pulls over, uh, or sorry, slows down. I'm watching. Slows down as the, the animal scampers
00:42:11away. That's right. You, the system will do that or, or even in a, maybe a more dramatic case,
00:42:18even pull you off the road and stop. I mean, that's the thing again, you know,
00:42:21let's talk about what we show today. The, the goal of our demonstration was we showed why we believe
00:42:30we're building a system that has multi layers of sensing the world. Cameras, which are great
00:42:38because they give you a very wild field and a 360 view of the world, right? But it works great in
00:42:45good weather. It can see all the way up to four football fields ahead. Then we layer on top of
00:42:51that radar, which can penetrate through fog or rain, can let's say detect a debris that your eyes
00:42:58or a camera, camera is just a super eyes, cannot detect, but the radar can. And then you layer on top
00:43:04of that the lidar. Now the lidar is creating a millimeter specific depiction of the world.
00:43:11Point cloud, right? Point cloud. Well said. And now we fuse all of those. So all of a sudden we
00:43:17created a superhuman that senses the world much better than you would. Right. So that fusion of
00:43:24that inputs married with the brain, the actual intelligence and the models that we're going
00:43:30to have will handle the situation appropriately. And then of course we will go through the specifics
00:43:36so if, then, if, then, if, then, what cases, but today we show a sudden experience like a deer jumping
00:43:43in front of the highway and your car doing a decelerated evasive maneuver is absolutely the
00:43:53art of the possible. And that's what we're working on. Okay. And I, and we talked to your colleague,
00:43:57Gary, uh, uh, Saigen about not just the sensor, not just this cool lidar array that's on the top,
00:44:04the radar you mentioned, uh, the cameras, but it's fundamentally tied to the central compute
00:44:10architecture that you'll be putting in the vehicle in 2028, right? This is, you can't have
00:44:15one without the other. That's the way we want to kind of bring the both technologies together in our
00:44:20launches, uh, because the next generation electrical and compute platform that we shared also gives us
00:44:29a higher compute capabilities and also gives us not just for autonomy for all other use cases
00:44:36in our capacity and headroom. And finally it just accelerates our speed to innovation because you
00:44:41probably saw it was very vividly depicted that one central unit replaces 13 modules and probably
00:44:49hundreds of other tasks in one central compute. And it is easier to update, easier to scale.
00:44:58And so therefore this type of use cases definitely benefit from a more elegant design. Okay. And then I,
00:45:05I went to, um, Nvidia GTC earlier this year and when the GM partnership was announced and one of the
00:45:11announcements was on manufacturing and the other side was the, the autonomous vehicle role. So, and I heard
00:45:19drive Thor is in this, will be in the vehicle specifically for supercruise or is that? Today,
00:45:26we didn't kind of get into the exact spec details of what sensor sets, what compute, etc. But, you know,
00:45:32when we're ready to share more, I'll, I'll make sure you hear first. Okay. And then I asked this question
00:45:37again, but you told me the great question. So I'm going to ask it again for our audience.
00:45:40But, um, you know, the sensor fusion, the fact that you're, you're losing LIDAR as well as radar,
00:45:49of course, different from other manufacturers. Tesla obviously is vision only. Um, GM has also been
00:45:55very upfront and forward about adopting the Google suite of technologies, Google built-in, um, Android
00:46:02automotive. Um, Google also bought Waze. I'm a huge Waze fan. And Waze's big thing was that the
00:46:09cars are essentially network. You know what, you know what traffic hazards are coming because
00:46:14the network knows. In a future post-2028, when supercruise is available, LIDAR is everywhere,
00:46:21will the cars talk to each other and tell you, Hey, there's a hazard ahead and you're going to need
00:46:29to take the wheel or, you know, you know what I'm saying? Like in the same way that Waze offers.
00:46:33I don't have anything like specific to share to that, but one thing we are going to absolutely do
00:46:39is we're going to continuously, that's the one benefit of our cars, right? They all have OnStar
00:46:44and OnStar is how we connect our cars to the world. So we will tap into all possible sources of data to
00:46:51kind of keep your knowledge of the roads fresh, but I don't have a specific feature to talk about at this
00:46:58point. Okay. All right. And we do have to wrap because we have to get the camera out. Got it.
00:47:02Okay. Okay. Well, Ferris, it was awesome to chat with you. Sam here. Hope to have you on the
00:47:07inevitable soon. We can go into greater depth, but this is very cool. Um, yeah, I have one last
00:47:14question. Go for it. The lights, the lights being turquoise. Yes. Um, California doesn't allow,
00:47:20but you don't only have to be white or yellow on forward facing. Otherwise you look like an emergency
00:47:24vehicle. I know this is a concept, but how important is it to have, I think you self answered yourself.
00:47:30Okay. Well, but is, is the point to show off that this car is underway under, it's not show off. It's
00:47:36a, I think there is a debate around emerging conventions. Should the vehicles convey to the
00:47:42outside world that they're autonomous or not, but as you know, there is no regulations or standards,
00:47:49et cetera. It's that's why I also was very clear that this is an early design study. Yep. And these
00:47:55are still to, there's a lot of, to be debated design choices. So I wouldn't take this as this
00:48:02is the set direction or this is a final direction. And you know, there's going to be, I think,
00:48:05interesting debates around what's going to be expected or required. So we'll see how it emerges.
00:48:12It's a low key flex for the blue car. Awesome. I appreciate it. Great questions. Thank you.
00:48:18Thank you so much. All right. Dave, you're our last interview today. We just saw the GM Forward
00:48:24Science Fair, as I've been calling it. Yeah. Pretty cool. Great. I'm going to get your impressions
00:48:30at the end, but what's the big news that you announced today regarding AI? Yeah. So we announced
00:48:39a number of things, but specifically in my area, we talked about how in 2026, so that's next year,
00:48:45we're bringing a conversational AI to our vehicles with Google Gemini. Okay.
00:48:54For the lay person or for somebody who's driving the GM vehicle right now, like say a new 2025
00:49:01GM vehicle that has Google built in already, and they know that they can say,
00:49:05hey, Google, you know, navigate me to the near Starbucks or, hey, Google, tell me a joke. What's,
00:49:10what's going to be the big, the big difference? Yeah. The big difference I think is, uh, what
00:49:16really comes from the power of large language models. So if you've used large language models
00:49:21like chat GBD or Google Gemini, you know that they understand context, right? They aren't particular
00:49:28about how you phrase things with the language you use. They can understand accents, um, the ways of
00:49:34speaking. And so I think what you're going to see is when we bring that into the vehicle,
00:49:38it's going to feel a lot more conversation and natural. It's going to have that context so that
00:49:42you can do more things in the vehicle than kind of what I would say is a little bit more canned
00:49:47interactions that you have today, a lot, a lot of the voice control. Okay. The robotic,
00:49:51like if you don't get the wording precisely correct, you don't get it quite right or whatever
00:49:55the keyword is, it doesn't understand you. And I think a lot of people who have used voice
00:49:59assistance in cars, myself included, have had it fail a few times and it's frustrating. And so it
00:50:05sort of turns you off. Maybe you don't use it as much. I think when you use large language models,
00:50:09it feels a lot more like you're talking to an actual human and they understand you and it's far
00:50:15more forgiving and you get the results that you need. So I think bringing that to the vehicle is going to
00:50:19be a big unlock for how you use voice in the car. Okay. Um, I mean, practically speaking,
00:50:24when you're in the car, is it, uh, is it a button push on the steering wheel? Is it the,
00:50:30is it the Hey Google prompt? Is it, um, I'll tell you like currently I'm in a Tesla that has
00:50:37both the vehicle assistant and then Grok on board, but it's, it's two mode. I have to like short push
00:50:43to do the car, get the car to do something. And then long push to talk to Grok, which
00:50:48doesn't do anything in the car. Like it doesn't. Right. So what's, what's kind of the, the user
00:50:52interface for doing that. Um, I don't think we've shared really a lot of those details today on that.
00:50:57Um, you know, I, I will kind of defer and come back, maybe come back to you on that one, but
00:51:04certainly our intent is that the mode of interaction should be seamless and it should be intuitive.
00:51:10Um, I've also told people that some people say like, I don't want voice in the car and that's fine.
00:51:15Uh, we were going to continue to design the cars and the interfaces so that you have different
00:51:20modes of using it. Um, we just think that voice is going to be a, an additional aspect on top of
00:51:24that. Okay. Um, in 2026 across, is it every vehicle that current, I mean, every vehicle currently
00:51:36runs Google built in. So, right. So which, so it'll, it'll be available through an OTA over there
00:51:42update. Okay. Um, I believe, and, and, um, so it's, it, you know, it's not just the new vehicle.
00:51:49It's not just 2026 vehicles. It's going to go back multiple years. I think all the way back to
00:51:552015 vehicles. Um, I don't need the exact specific for where that cutoff is, but the intent is to
00:52:02bring it to as large of the car park as existing vehicles, as well as our new ones, as we possibly
00:52:06can really, the only limitation is, is you go back in time so far that you don't have the basic
00:52:12hardware requirements to run it. Other than that, it will come through an OTA.
00:52:17This is burying the lead. Like I, like I didn't realize, I thought it was starting in 2026 volumes.
00:52:22Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a, sorry. We were clear on that. Um, in 2026, that capability will roll
00:52:28out across the car park all the way to 20 back to around, I believed around 2015. I don't hold me
00:52:35exactly on that date. But what would be the hardware limitation? Uh, basically if, uh,
00:52:40if we just don't have the compute hardware to run that headroom, there's also some compatibilities
00:52:45potentially with, um, the Google Gemini application and its software, whether it can run on the physical
00:52:52hardware itself. Again, um, also some of the OTA capabilities, if you go back far enough,
00:52:57being able to do sort of those larger, more advanced OTAs are more challenging because of the
00:53:02architecture we had at the time. Okay. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So if you're a current
00:53:06GM owner of a vehicle that's around 2015 and newer, they should expect to see sometime in 2026,
00:53:13what a email or a text, like allow or in-car notification that'll tell them that the update
00:53:19is available. Yeah. So it'll be, it'll be an OTA update. And as part of those updates, you know,
00:53:24it'll have a list of the features coming out and this will be a majorly highlighted feature that's
00:53:28coming to your vehicle. Um, and you click install and then, and then there it is. Um,
00:53:33I'm sure we'll have other, uh, uh, ways in venues where we'll advertise and make this more visible
00:53:38to people so they can expect it and get excited about it. Interesting. Okay. Um,
00:53:44I think it's pretty cool. Yeah. That's I didn't, I didn't, I thought it was like,
00:53:47okay, so if you buy a new car, like you would get this, but no, I, I, I, I, I,
00:53:50we're bringing the value to existing, uh, car owners, uh, all the way back for quite a while.
00:53:55Residual times. Yeah. Okay. Uh, that's blowing my mind. Um, okay. Good. Mission accomplished.
00:54:02Mission accomplished. So, so let me, let me just run this by you too. Cause you're,
00:54:08you're now two years to a little over two years in, um, the decision about, uh, Google built in
00:54:17basically walking away from, uh, CarPlay predates you. Um, projection basically. Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:23CarPlay we're doing. Right. And I was, I was struck by it. We just did our SUV of the year competition
00:54:28and I drove 44 different vehicles and, uh, in about two and a half days. It's a lot of driving.
00:54:35And I logged that more than half of them from all different manufacturers had Google built in.
00:54:41And I was like, pretty clear who's won the war here in terms of dominant operating system. Is that,
00:54:48is that true? Is that, is that your, is that your perception? I mean, look, I, I think Google has
00:54:55invested a lot in, um, not just projection correctly. Like they built a bunch of libraries
00:55:03and applications and frameworks that let you integrate more into the vehicle as opposed to
00:55:08completely giving over the screen real estate or the experience to them. Right. And so I think
00:55:14that's why you see it adopted so much. I also think with things like Google maps and navigation,
00:55:19people just have come to expect that as, as standard. Right. So it makes sense.
00:55:23You know, I think Google also has a track record of open source and kind of mode of collaboration.
00:55:28So I think that combination is why you're seeing it so much. Um, and you know, it's been valuable for
00:55:34us as well. Uh, I noticed that we, given your prior employer and the many years you spread there,
00:55:40it must be a little bit of a, or, uh, or are you like, well, no, I, I do that. You personally
00:55:45vastly prefer one system over the, over another or, you know, look, I, I, I'm, I think for as long
00:55:51as I'm going to be around, I'm going to be a fan of Apple and Apple's products. Um, I think they do
00:55:56a ton of things really well. And, and that's not always the same overlap space with what Google does
00:56:01well. Um, and I think in the car space for the things that GM needs, Google's really had a great focus
00:56:06there. Um, I certainly, uh, understand people's love and desire for car play. Um, but I think as
00:56:13we've talked about in the past, um, that's not the direction we need to go in terms of being able to
00:56:18own and control the user interface and the experience in the car. Um, so, you know, I, I don't want to
00:56:24comment too much around, um, their, their business models, but I think their focus has been a little
00:56:29bit different in how they've, um, tried to tackle a vehicle. That's fair. I, I was struck by how
00:56:36how, you know, believe me on staff at MotorChamp, we are a little bit too much, uh, on the car play
00:56:43side. I have to actively tell folks that guys, you can't put the phone away or let's get some
00:56:47Android phones that we have to really, to fairly evaluate the vehicles. You have to just, you have
00:56:52to use the native system. I think that's the big win here is that the Google built-in system is
00:56:58so good. It is, I think it is very competitive with what car play delivers, but the, the, the chief,
00:57:06um, I think the, the point that everyone stumbles over is eventually you have to pay for the service.
00:57:13Whereas car play it's free, so to speak. Well, in that it comes on your phone and you just walk in.
00:57:19Yeah. So, you know, where we're going and the way we're building is we're building a lot of stuff
00:57:23in house. We're partnering with, with some aspects, but at the end of the day, what we're
00:57:28trying to deliver and we're going to deliver is a native experience for GM vehicles that we only
00:57:33control. We control the customer experience. There'll be aspects of that, um, maybe for
00:57:37additional features, um, which will be subscription based on top of that. Um, but kind of that core
00:57:44capabilities, whether, whether that's Google maps behind the scene or whatever, that should be
00:57:50really transparent to the user in the same way that, you know, if you have a phone today,
00:57:55it's got a lot of different apps and technologies on it and you can kind of mix and choose what
00:57:59you're paying for, what you're not, what comes bundled with it. So that kind of flexibility,
00:58:02I think is what you're going to see in the vehicle as well. Okay. All right. Um,
00:58:11how would the, this is my second to last question. Sure. How has it been, uh, a GM now,
00:58:18when you're now, you've been there two years, like what's the, what was, what's probably the
00:58:20biggest revelation or, or change for you? You know, I say I've really enjoyed my time here
00:58:26so far. Um, it's been quite a learning experience. Uh, you know, I, I don't think
00:58:32before I joined GM, I really appreciated how much engineering and complexity goes into a vehicle,
00:58:40it's design, it's manufacturing, safety, critical, regulatory. So that's been a really exciting
00:58:45journey for me is it's understanding how to take software and narrow it into that world.
00:58:50Um, I would say as well, like the company itself, I'm very impressed with how open and how hard
00:58:58they're pushing with a technology transformation. Those things are really challenging. Um, and it's
00:59:04really hard to do. And the fact that the company is bought in is fully behind this. I think it was
00:59:11really impressive for me and continues to be that way with, with very immersed leadership. So
00:59:16that for me has been a fun ride to be, to be a part of. And, you know, at the end of the day,
00:59:21what I like doing is, is building, um, technology that gets in people's hands. Um, you know,
00:59:26it's one of the reasons I like being an Apple. It's also like why I like being a GM and, you know,
00:59:30growing up in the Midwest, growing up with GM cars everywhere, it's pretty great to ship software
00:59:34that, um, you know, is really in people's hands and making a difference in their lives.
00:59:39So. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Last question, bringing it back to this Gemini, uh,
00:59:45conversational AI coming to GM vehicles in 2026. Yeah. For you, for you, maybe personally,
00:59:52what's like the big win? What's if, if like a customer says, or you overhear them and line
00:59:57on the grocery store, I just did this in the car. Like what, what's, what's the thing where you're
01:00:00like, no, that's gonna be so cool. Yeah. I mean, I think the big win for me is, um,
01:00:05just if you see people talking about that capability in a car, talking about our vehicles,
01:00:14but also like, you know, I, I think there's a big unlock with, uh, voice companions and assistants
01:00:20inside, um, inside of the vehicle. And, um, I'll be excited when that's really what people do. Like,
01:00:28if you, if you see people get in a car and instead of reaching for a button or something like that,
01:00:32they're talking to it and they're getting really value out of it. That for me means like,
01:00:36it's really landed and it's been successful. Yeah. Maybe as opposed to a novelty way of like,
01:00:41you try it out or something, or like in a pinch, you try it. Um, if it's really becomes like for
01:00:46many people, they're primary way with interacting with the car, that's pretty cool. All right.
01:00:50Or I can see in 2020, you get into a escalate IQ, set the nav, put the seat back. Yeah.
01:00:56Talk to your AI, like it's your therapist for a couple hours. Well, I don't know. I don't know
01:01:01if bringing, uh, bringing a companion is what we're going for. I think, you know, we've been
01:01:06very clear, like, you know, it's about being an AI assistant and what's valuable in the car.
01:01:11Um, I I'm sure people can think of a whole bunch of use cases as they do for that, but really we're,
01:01:16we want to bring that value for the vehicle. And I think there's a lot of headroom for that
01:01:19that hasn't been realized yet. Awesome. Well, thank you for your time.
01:01:23You bet. Thanks for being here. Busy day. I know with a lot of exciting though.
01:01:27Lots of great stuff. So appreciate the time. Good to talk with you.
01:01:30Thank you. All right. So that's it that you heard it all from,
01:01:34from all of the smartest people in general motors. Thanks for watching this episode of the inevitable.
01:01:40We'll be back, uh, next week. So catch you then.
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